Volleyball: Panthers jump out to 2-0 in Big East play

If the Pitt women’s volleyball team aims to win a Big East crown this year — its first since… If the Pitt women’s volleyball team aims to win a Big East crown this year — its first since 2004 — its blocking will lead the way.

Senior Meagan Dooley, the Big East player of the week for the second consecutive week, led the blocking brigade this weekend, notching seven blocks as the Panthers took down Marquette and Syracuse.

Individually, Dooley is second in the Big East, averaging 1.35 blocks per set. That’s a big statistic for the team, which averages 2.62 blocks per set — third in the conference behind Louisville (2.99) and Syracuse (2.85).

Pitt coach Toby Rens said the game against Marquette was particularly a great blocking match for the Panthers, who out-blocked Marquette 14-2, meaning they gained 14 points solely from blocking.

“The great thing is, Syracuse is a great blocking team,” Rens said. “They have Sarah Morton, who’s leading the conference in blocks per set (1.61). Meagan really out-played her, and as a team, we out-blocked them significantly.”

Dooley helped the Panthers drop Marquette and Syracuse in straight sets this past weekend.

Pitt (10-6 overall, 2-0 Big East) is now tied with Notre Dame and South Florida atop the conference standings. All will compete for the conference title, Rens said.

“Both Louisville and Cincinnati had one conference match this past weekend, so I’d throw them in, too,” Rens said. “Definitely, those five would be my prediction for the top five teams in the conference.”

This year, the “Queens of Impede” are stuffing their way past teams. The Panthers made 23 blocks during this weekend’s games.

Rens said he mentioned the matchup to Dooley, who didn’t need a reminder of the challenge. Both Dooley and Morton are seniors and have played against each other numerous times.

Along with Dooley, junior Imani Harper helped the blocking cause with eight stuffs, as did senior Melissa Stadelman with six.

“Certainly against Marquette, one of their strengths is their outside hitting,” Rens said. “We focused a lot in preparation on blocking. We worked on it quite a bit last week, and it was great to see it pay off for us.”

Rens said the work in practice has been going on all year, but some players are now getting the chance to use their fundamentals in game situations.

“It’s starting to come together more because some players — like Harper, Stadelman and Allyson Hodnik — have a lot more match experience now under their belts,” he said. “It becomes a lot easier for them with the match experience to apply things on the court, and that’s exactly what happened over the weekend.”

Even Hodnik, who is 5 feet 7 inches tall, finished with three blocks against Marquette.

Rens said she works hard on timing and setting the block in practice and often has to play against opponents standing at 6 feet or more.

That effort could push the Panthers through the tough stretch of the upcoming schedule.

The Panthers are surely disappointed to leave the Fitzgerald Field House after only two games — they are a perfect 6-0 this year at home.

The Panthers start a four-game road stint beginning next weekend when they play at Cincinnati on Saturday and at reigning Big East champion, Louisville, the following day. Both matches start at 2 p.m.

The following weekend, the Panthers travel to play Georgetown on Friday and South Florida on Sunday.

But Pitt is riding a five-game winning streak into its next matches and knows what it’s like to travel this year. Pitt played 10 of 16 matches on the road to start the year.

“When you’re on the road, you have to shut out all distractions,” Rens said. “I think that we can learn from our early, difficult, out-of-conference road schedule. It was tough, but we learned stuff from that. We have to be on top of things as far as preparation — academically and mentally.”

It will be a difficult test for Pitt, which will play two teams picked to finish ahead of it in the preseason ballot.